From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Sep 07 2004 - 14:03:48 BST
> Ant McWatt comments:
>
> Zdravstvuite Comrade Holden!,
>
> It’s good to hear from you as usual though I suspect you’ve been reading
> your Manifesto backwards again.
>
> To remind you Comrade, the party line is that, all things being equal, it’s
> moral for social patterns (such as a government) to financially support
> intellectual patterns (i.e. the university curriculum). It’s only immoral
> when a government attempts to control an intellectually orientated
> curriculum.
Thanks for making my point. Governments are in the business of control.
Never do they hand out taxpayer money without strings attached, including
to universities. Thus, by your own definition, governments are immoral.
> Comrade McWatt comments:
>
> I have checked the manifesto for you, Comrade Holden. It states that
> governments don’t actually have any money. “Their” money is really the
> taxpayers!
Thanks again. A point I've made repeatedly, e.g. the coercive nature of
government, backed by guns.
> Comrade McWatt comments:
>
> Artists? Yes, like the philosophers they should have all been shot in the
> Great Revolution!!! Free thinkers are always a danger to the status quo
> and should be repressed at all possible times.
Refusing to use taxpayer money to pay artists for products nobody wants or
needs can hardly be termed "repression."
> However, the manifesto states that no-one is coerced into buying individual
> pieces of art though obviously arts councils etc are often partly funded by
> the taxpayer via government to improve the general quality of life - as are
> the police, armed forces, health services and business development.
To put artists in the same category of police, soldiers, doctors and
employers is an insult to all.
> Comrade McWatt comments:
>
> The manifesto states that Chairman Pirsig received a stipend (one pig?)
> from the Guggenheim Foundation for writing LILA!
Thanks again for making my point. The Guggenheim Foundation is a private
organization.
> Comrade McWatt comments:
>
> Nearly the full picture but – as usual - not quite full marx here. The
> manifesto states that as an MOQ taxpayer I would expect the government to
> maintain a high quality intellectually orientated educational system rather
> than one orientated to social purposes such as developing commercial
> interests.
We would expect the government to do a good job in secondary education,
but it's failure is legendary. And if it wasn't for those "commercial
interests" the government wouldn't have any money to bestow on ivory tower
professors, most of whom have never met a payroll nor have any idea what
it takes to do so.
> Too true Comrade but remember a free market means a dynamic system whether
> economic or educational and the latter (in the MOQ) is primary.
And educational dynamic system primary in the MOQ? I don't think so.
Pirsig blasted intellectuals in Lila, calling their obeisance to
scientific objectivity "hogwash" (Lila, 22). Further negative assessments
of intellectuals can be found in Chapters 22 and 24.
> Priyatnyh Socialist snov Comrade!
Considering communists under Stalin slaughtered 13 million of their own
citizens in party purges, your attempt at humor comes across as
insensitive, to put it kindly.
Platt
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